Sophia Magazine vol.3 / SUMMER 2016

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uted to other studies. He is also engaged in a study to clarify the differences in cerebral function and physical movement between beginner and professional musicians to identify the elements necessary for better performance.“For example, it has been found that a person who can swiftly and consecutively hit octave piano keys Do to Do has strong muscles on the upper arms and the shoulders but relatively weak grasping power. Professional performers use their big muscles in a very effective manner. It has also been found that professional performers can continue playing for long hours by effectively saving their energy using physical laws such as inertial force. Through scientifically clarifying those matters, I would like to present evidence-based practice methods that are suitable for each person.”Since his transfer to Sophia University from Germany in 2014, he has been accelerating his study. At present, together with about 10 students, he is carrying out as many as 300 ex-periments per year, aiming to assist performers with the fruit of his work. “Sophia has an international atmosphere and my research environment here is not much different from what I was used to in Germany. The University has many students who eagerly study on their own initiative. They work on tough experiments in a willing manner. I am blessed with this wonderful research environment.”In addition to developing a method to retain the effects for a longer period, we will also make efforts to clarify the reason why there are differences in effects and to develop treatment methods suitable for each individual,” he says.Aiming to establish the treatment, he is now in the pro-cess of conducting a large-scale clinical trial with 60 human subjects at the National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry (NCNP).In fact, Furuya had begun to learn the piano at the age of 3 and at one time dreamed of becoming a professional pianist. When he was a university student, he practiced the piano for about 10 hours a day on weekends and holidays and for more than five hours even on weekdays. Then, at the age of 19, he suddenly felt something unusual.“At first, I felt acute pain in the hand and it became diffi-cult to move my fingers smoothly. No clear cause was diag-nosed by an orthopedist. But later on, I came to know that the symptoms were quite similar to those of focal dystonia. After finding out that no established treatment was yet available, I decided to focus on this study myself.”His dream of becoming a professional pianist also contrib-Utilizing His Own Dreams of Becoming aPianist for His Studies1: Musician’s dystonia 2: Robot-based rehabilitation for musician’s dystonia 3: Recording of muscular activities in piano playing 4: Non-invasive brain stimulation for neuro-rehabilitation 5: Custom-made piano with high-resolution position sensors1345215Research

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